


In Between

by TelepathJeneral



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:30:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TelepathJeneral/pseuds/TelepathJeneral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhetoric is a powerful thing. But sometimes it helps to just cut through the bullshit and get to the truth of the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The clouds hung heavy over the small town, spelling another day of rain for those who cared to look.  Though uncaring about and mostly unaffected by the weather, Kieren had elected to spend his day indoors, as he had most days, but with one minor adjustment. Since August, as the weather had worsened and the temperatures had dropped, Kieren found he was one of the few people-loosely defined-that was still willing to make the trek to Amy's old bungalow, now properly Simon's place. He had his reasons for visiting, and he was sure his parents weren't fooled, but they didn't protest whenever he bundled up in a totally unnecessary jacket and went "for a walk". He had noticed his dad giving him odd looks from time to time, nothing more than a sideways glance, but for the most part they'd let him do as he wanted.

Inside the bungalow, the atmosphere wasn't much different from the clouds outside. The colors were muted by the low light, shades were drawn to leave the rooms a dark grey, and the unspoken agreement to avoid the flesh-toned mousse meant that even Simon himself was simply another grey thing in the room. Kieren didn't mind. It matched him, now, and meant that he matched it too. The bungalow still had Amy's unique touch, and it was always a bittersweet reunion whenever he stepped in the door. Simon made it slightly better. He understood, and that made everything better.

It was within this greyish bubble, this cocoon constructed of Amy’s memory and Simon’s hand in his, that Kieren first heard the knock. He looked up, slightly confused, and moved to stand, but a glance to Simon told him that the other man had hardly heard the knock. For a moment, Kieren thought he was hearing things, but when the knock came again, more insistently, Kieren got up fully and went to answer the door.

People didn’t call at Simon’s door anymore. No one besides Kieren even visited the place. So, when Kieren opened the door, he was not expecting a flesh-and-blood woman to shove a pamphlet in his face, her voice excitedly launching into a rehearsed speech a moment before trailing off in shock.

“Good day! I do hope you have a moment to spare to hear about…” The look she gave him was _priceless_ , a whole bundle of surprise mixed up in a wrapping of disgust and fear. Kieren bore it, as he had others-most looks were the same, anyway, when he stopped wearing the mousse-and watched her stagger back, making the sign of the cross with one hand.

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” With an almost frantic cry, she fled back to the street, clutching the rest of her pamphlets to her chest as she tried to move along to the next bungalow. Kieren watched her go, leaning out of the doorway for a moment, but found the door abruptly closing as Simon moved to intervene.

“Another one.”

“Another what?” Kieren could hardly stop Simon as the taller man plucked the pamphlet from his hands, scanning over the tagline of “Demons in Disguise!” with a sneer before turning to walk deeper into the bungalow. Confused, and still seeking an answer to his question, Kieren moved to follow him, snatching the pamphlet back from Simon before the other man could throw it away.

“Trust me, Kieren, it’s nothing but lunacy. Every time a religious fanatic tries to ‘explain’ us, they turn to the same verses.” Simon gestured to the pamphlet, relinquishing the paper to Kieren.

“Not so different from you. With the ULA. Quoting from Revelation all the time.” Kieren opened the folded paper to continue scanning the inside, finding the rhetoric much less bombastic than the type Vicar Oddie would have used. The HVF, the vicar, Rick’s dad-all driven on by the same twisted garbage. And now this woman was handing out flyers about the same drivel. Honestly, one would think they’d give up at some point.

“That was different.”

“That’s what they all say.” Kieren shrugged, handing the pamphlet back to Simon, and watched it flutter into the trash bin before returning to the main room. A brief touch of paint had hidden the verses painted on the walls, but Kieren hesitated all the same to study the place where the paint stood out.

“I don’t know why you give them the time of day.” Simon returned to his seat slowly, watching Kieren with some concern. “You know their type.”

“I want to know what they’re saying, though.” Kieren pointed out. “I can’t argue with a woman who calls me Beelzebub, or something, but I can at least know what she thinks. What she’s telling everyone else.”

“It won’t get you anywhere. Humans will be humans.”

“Don’t say that. You didn’t meet the vicar-before.” Kieren hesitated as soon as he’d spoken, feeling Simon’s probing glance. “You heard about him, I suspect.”

“Vicar Oddie. The one who met with Maxine Martin.” Both names were spoken with obvious disdain, a tone not too dissimilar the woman had used to proclaim “Get thee behind me” only a few minutes before. Kieren tried not to dwell on the idea, and forced himself to concentrate on Simon’s face, noting a familiar intensity. “I knew of him.”

“Yes, I’m sure you in the ULA were keeping a close eye on him.”

“We were trying to protect ourselves, Kieren. We were trying to protect people like you and me.”

“From what? Fanatics only have power if they get enough other fanatics.”

“They are calling us _demons_.” Simon emphasized, leaning forward with a precise emphasis. Kieren knew how the living could call the risen demons-he could see the preternatural power in Simon’s posture, the inhuman void in the pupils of his eyes. It was entirely human to fear the risen. But Simon-and the ULA-felt otherwise. “Does that not upset you, Kieren?”

“Why should it? I know I’m not one of Satan’s legions.” Kieren didn’t try to hide his smile, even as Simon furrowed his brows. “Borrowed that from the pamphlet. Sorry.”

“You’re not even going to try and fight them?”

“When it becomes a problem. But I can’t change everyone, Simon. I spent so long thinking I was a…a demon, a destroying angel, something that was alone and abandoned and hated by the world. And now that I’m here, I’m not going to live in this story written by someone else. I can’t let what they say matter to me. My parents know we’re not demons. Jem knows. You know. They’re the only people whose opinions matter to me.”

As he had predicted, the small flattery made Simon relax, and Kieren approached the couch to take his seat again. “Then I suppose I shan’t call down the wrath of heaven on the heretics.”

“No. I’d prefer if you didn’t do that just yet.” Kieren smiled, linking his arm with Simon’s, and let their hands interlock once more. Though the conversation died off, Kieren could still feel the tension in Simon’s hand, and he thought to himself about the ULA. Simon had mentioned the wrath of heaven as a joke, hadn’t he? They didn’t even talk much about the ULA anymore. But there was still a part of Kieren that knew Simon would not-no, could not-ignore what he’d been taught by the Undead Prophet.


	2. Chapter 2

It was odd, returning to the supermarket; Kieren knew that he had his own reasons for avoiding certain aisles, and only sticking to the shopping list, but it was considerate of Simon not to pry. Simon, of course, was probably still haunted by his own problems: the continued stares of other shoppers, the whispers as people noticed the edible goods at the front of the cart. Let them stare, thought Kieren. They could make their own assumptions about the biscuits and cheese Kieren bought.

It was along the back rows, among the cleaning supplies and the pet food, that Kieren noticed a scrap of paper tucked beneath the loo paper, a flash of red against the grey and white. With some effort, he managed to tug it free from the shelf, and blinked in surprise at the black fist clenched above a mound of soil. He slipped the paper into his pocket, turning to tug at the shopping trolley, and steadfastly ignored Simon until they returned to the checkout counter.

Even there, the girl checking them out stared at the cheese as she scanned it, unsure of whether Kieren actually wanted to buy it. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but as both Kieren and Simon stared back at her, she quickly amended herself.

“Are you…sure you want a bag? You didn’t get much-“

“Plastic, please.” Simon tried to smile, but the girl simply shuddered and kept working, placing items in bags without rhyme or reason. Kieren waited until she was nearly finished, then reached out to take the bags from her, letting Simon shove the trolley at its holding pen before they both moved outside.

Frost hid among the edges of the supermarket windows, and the ground underfoot held a crunch reserved for winter. Despite assuring Simon that ‘he had it, don’t worry’, Kieren found that Simon had taken a grocery bag anyway, walking beside Kieren with a casual ease. Instead of following the sidewalk, however, Kieren directed them off into a low ditch, nudging at Simon with his shoulder whenever they got too close.

“What did you find in there, then.” Simon nodded, but didn’t look to Kieren, and Kieren himself hesitated to explain his discovery.

“Just a paper. Garbage.”

“It looked-“

“ULA.” Kieren didn’t try to disguise his irritation, still acutely aware of the paper in his pocket. “It was ULA propaganda.”

“The ULA hardly distributes it. It’s more of a ‘members-only’ guideline.”

“I don’t care.” Kieren hunched his shoulders, ignoring Simon’s response. “It’s produced by the ULA. That’s all I know.”

“You’ve never read the proper manuals. You don’t know what they teach.”

“I don’t want to know, Simon. I know what you taught.”

“Yes. I suppose you did.” Simon quieted, avoiding the unspoken question. Plants rustled beneath Kieren’s boots as they walked on, advancing up the hill toward the bungalow. “Did you ever consider it?”

“Consider it? Of course I did.” Kieren felt, more than saw, Simon’s surprise, the silent interest that had characterized a good many moments in their relationship. “You and Amy said we were angels, Simon. Of course I considered the idea.”

“’Angels’ was a bit of rhetoric, really. We were Redeemed.”

“Don’t start again. You said angels, and you meant angels. Maybe not angels with halos and wings, but you wanted to think that we were better than the living.”

“Aren’t we?”

Kieren stopped short, forcing Simon to turn and look back at him. With hurt and more than a bit of anger visible on his face, Kieren shook his head, reaching up to feel the back of his neck for the dip that indicated his treatment area.

“We killed people, Simon. Of course we aren’t better than anybody.”

“You know what the ULA says, though. We are, in many ways, better. We survived. We came back. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means that we’re different. It doesn’t make us better.”

“Kieren-“

“Who developed neurotryptaline? Who hands out the doses and makes sure they’re regulated and that PDS sufferers-“

“The undead.”

“-Aren’t left to keep wandering the moors? The living did. I’m not saying they’re perfect, but they’re not all bad, Simon. And we’re not all good.”

“I’ve said, I didn’t mean ‘angels’ as some sort of perfect ideal, I meant-“

“Don’t lie to me, Simon. Saying that we’re perfect just hides the truth. I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. And insisting that I’m some precious Redeemed angel contradicts all of that. We’ve hurt people. Even after treatment, we’ve hurt people. And of _course_ I like thinking that I’m better than everyone else, but that’s just not true.”

Slightly exhausted by his outburst, Kieren stood, facing Simon across trampled grass and overturned stones. Finally, Simon shrugged in concession, turning to keep ascending the hill. Kieren fell into step beside him, silent as the grave, and followed beside him. His argument continued internally, however, his position divided as he tried to consider Simon’s position.

When the living insisted you were a demon, maybe it was natural to reply that you were an angel. The ULA certainly seemed to think that. But neither assessment was correct, in Kieren’s thinking, and he couldn’t let Simon keep calling them angels either. One way or another, people would realize that the undead weren’t from heaven or from hell. The undead just came back from earth.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It was dark all the time, once winter got properly underway. Visibility dropped, temperatures dropped, and everyone bundled up. Simon’s love of sweaters and Kieren’s affection for hoodies continued unabated, and fortunately, no one pointed out the fact that ‘rotters don’t need to stay warm’. Which, though true, would have robbed both Simon and Kieren of clothing they both appreciated and enjoyed, and would have forced them to find other excuses for sitting side by side, hand in hand while a small fire burned in the fire pit.

“It was bigger, the first time.” Kieren scuffed his shoe on the dirt, nodding. “Brighter.”

“We had more people.”

“Yes. Well.” Kieren shrugged, thinking. “Were you planning to make it a rally?”

“If everyone chose to. I wouldn’t ignore the desires of my followers.”

“You wouldn’t. You didn’t. But you still taught them.”

“They came to me, Kieren. Don’t blame me for their choices.”

“I don’t…blame you, it’s just-“ Kieren sat up, removing his hand from Simon’s, and settled back on the rough-hewn bench. “I can’t stand it. The ULA. And they’re still out there, and people are still listening to them, and it gets so much harder to be a PDS sufferer-fine, undead-when the ULA keeps doing its thing. We’ve been quiet, up here. But the ULA still makes the news.”

“I don’t know what you want from us, Kieren.” Simon shifted away, leaning forward on his knees while keeping his eyes on Kieren. A beat of silence stretched in the darkened forest, and Kieren finally blinked before looking towards Simon.

“I want you to stop proclaiming that we’re so different. That’s the point, isn’t it? You keep saying how different we are, how special we are, and everyone that isn’t ULA keeps trying to find ways to remind people that they aren’t so different. I mean, I get where you’re coming from. I really do. But insisting that you’re angels doesn’t help your cause, not really.”

“Having Victus proclaim that we’re devils doesn’t help either.”

“And you know how to make them stop? By refusing to act like devils. God, the whole-“ Kieren raised a hand, gesturing into the wilderness. “- _thing_ , down in the city, and the Blue Oblivion-that just confirms what they think we are! And we’re not like that. I’m not like that. I don’t want to be like that, and when the ULA keeps proclaiming that they’re the voice of all undead-“

“I’m not a part of the ULA anymore.” Simon nodded, looking back to the fire. Kieren had to stop short, looking to Simon in a moment of consternation, and leaned forward to emulate the other man. “Yeah. I left. So go on, say what you want about the ULA. I just don’t want you thinking that I’m part of that anymore.”

“Oh.” Kieren tried to find words to keep going, but found himself slightly speechless. “Um. Right, well.”

“Go on. You had a good argument going, there.”

“Yeah, yeah, I just-um, the ULA. And angels.”

“And devils.”

“And us.” Kieren nodded, sitting up. “It’s all just stupid rhetoric, in the end. Everyone giving their speeches, and gathering their followers, and for what? To make people think they’re right? I can tell them now, they’re all wrong.”

“Are they?” Despite the question, Simon smiled as he said it, sitting up to face Kieren. Kieren matched his smile with a nod, thinking, and continued on.

“They’re wrong, aren’t they. They stand up and shout about how evil we are, and how disgusting we are, and we all know that’s a load of bullshit. Honestly, really, when we live as we do, it’s obvious bullshit. But then you lot, the other side, they all go around proclaiming how great we are, how good we are, how much better we are than everyone else, and that’s not it either, see. “

“It isn’t, hm?” With one hand, Simon reached up to touch Kieren’s chin, evidently much more interested in the speaker than the speech. “What is it?”

“We aren’t angels or demons, Simon. Don’t ever think that.” Kieren leaned into the touch, letting Simon run his hand back and into Kieren’s hair. “We’re just-“

“Yes?”

“Just human. Only human. Only ever human.” Kieren smiled, finding Simon’s lips suddenly covering his, and he let the other man lean close as they both pressed into the kiss. It was a quiet moment before Simon pulled away, kissing Kieren’s cheek before fully pulling back, and Kieren continued smiling as he nodded. “We aren’t from heaven. Or from hell. Don’t you see, Simon, that’s all I want, is to be human.”

“And you are. We are. We are entirely human.” Simon smiled, reaching down to take Kieren’s hand in his. “Don’t _you_ ever forget that.”

“How could I? I’ve got you to remind me.” With another kiss, Kieren allowed himself a soft chuckle. “I’ve got you. And that’s the only kind of philosophy I need.”


End file.
